Wednesday, 31 August 2011

This was written by Robin Klein in 1983. It is told from the perspective of Frances. She is about my age, she lives alone with her Aunt Loris.

Aunt Loris then marries Mr Tyrell who is in a very unbelievably strict religion. It believes everyone else is evil, the world will soon end and everyone but them will die. So they don't interact with the outside world. The only time they go out is to meet at The Temple with other followers of their religion. Mr Tyrell has three daughters, none of whom go to school, which in the world of the book is illegal (unlike this world, woohoo!). The plot of the book is Frances's struggle to escape.

It is awful. I could have got the whole story in 6 carefully chosen chapters out of the 16 there were - chapters 1 to 4, 10 and 16. The remaining 10 chapters said this:
"I want to leave the crazy religious people. I want to leave the crazy religious people. I can't, my aunt is one of them. Got to get away from the crazy religious people. I can't, my aunt is one of them. Got to get away from the crazy religious people. What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?..."

Repeat. For 10 whole chapters.

I was looking forward to this book because on the back it claims "there are sinister secrets" and that it's "a powerful suspense story." I think this would have been a good book if it had just contained the chapters I specified but I really didn't like this book.

I'd like to start with a positive comment and say this is a very good sequel to The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Unfortunately it had a predictable plot twist and too many characters so I lost track of them.

The book tried to do too many things at once. We were following Simon and his search for Dr Field; Sophie and her life at the castle; Hanoverian plots; Dido the mischievous, annoying youngest daughter of the landlord Mr Twite; abductions, shipwrecks, babies swapped at birth, several rescues, explosions and hot air balloons.

I think the whole book could have done with better pacing. The start of the book took far too long and the ending had too much happening. I really liked the storyline, I just didn't like how the author bunched too much of the action at the end; like a slack string for half a book then pulled REALLY tight for the last bit.

I give it 17 out of 100.

Jay Writes - I was sorry Luke didn't enjoy this one, I'd loved it at his age and was chuffed to have the chance to re-read it. I agree with Luke about the over-abundance of characters and the mad gallop through adventures in the last few chapters but I didn't mind.